Self-Defense

In truth, if strict self-defense were ever at stake, patriotism would be unnecessary: people would not require any inflated passion to defend what was not an inflated purpose.

But if we followed Wilkinson’s recommendation and loved freedom while being faithless to any particular country, we would need to have patriotism to inspire us to defend a country that might not be sufficiently liberal in its regime. Certainly, if the invader promised to liberate us from the restrictive and oppressive regime that ruled our country, we might be inclined to collaborate with the invader if we “loved freedom” and eschewed patriotism. Never mind for the moment that the logic of this position is identical to that of neo-imperialists who expect foreigners to abandon their patriotic loyalties to help us overthrow their governments.